


Embrace

by varooooom



Series: Random Word Prompts [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is at his least guarded when he's asleep. Merlin thinks it's adorable. Arthur hates Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> This spawned from a meme that was one random word for one random piece of headcanon. The word for this one was "blanket." There'll be more to come eventually, and they're all super fluffy drabbles purely made for the sake of baaaaws.

The first thing anyone sees when they look at Arthur Pendragon is the unbridled power he holds simply in his demeanor. Even without knowing that he is the Crown Prince of Camelot, most anyone would take one look at him and see someone of import and power, someone that commands respect and due humility.

Merlin isn't most anyone. He's special like that.

He's also special enough to have the _privilege_ of being the Prince Prat's manservant. At least, he's told it's a privilege. He's yet to see the glamour of shining Arthur's boots or carrying his armour around or mucking out the stables in the middle of the hottest bloody summer Albion has seen in ages, and then being openly mocked when he returns to the Prince's chambers smelling absolutely foul. Privilege, Merlin's pasty white arse. There's nothing particularly pleasant or honourable about serving His Royal Cabbagehead. If anything, it's a damned _curse_ , because for all that Merlin gets to see Arthur at his best, he also gets to see him at his worst.

Merlin watches as Arthur stands at attention, tension crawling across every inch of his body as he stands before the King during an unfavourable ruling. He's there to remove Arthur's mail after a bad day of training with yet another potential Knight running home to his mum. He stands beside Arthur when they've to patrol the border towns that struggle greatly this far from the capitol with no means to protect themselves from bandits. Every time something goes wrong, Merlin is there to witness it, and more often than not, Arthur's frustrations are taken out on his manservant. Merlin knows it's not intentional, but it is suffering and there are days he questions his place beside the Once and Future King.

And then there are the days he doesn't question it at all. When Arthur argues with his father for the sake of the people the King tends to overlook, when he shows a kind hand of guidance to those not as strong as he on the training grounds, when he swears his devotion to the townsfolk that only know of him by name. When he can take one look at Arthur and see every bit of the fine King he will make some day.

When he wakes Arthur up in the morning and finds him wrapped so thoroughly into his bedsheets, they almost seem a second skin.

For all that Arthur is composed and Princely throughout the day, he lets his guard down in his sleep (just so, not entirely, not if you check under his pillows for his sword) and _relaxes_ , letting propriety slip away into a comfortable sleep. It's not entirely uncommon for Merlin to find him hugging his pillows rather than sleeping on them, but the days when he's tangled up into a mess of sheets and long, sunbathed limbs are few and far between, and all the more precious for it. 

Merlin finds him on one such day and sets his breakfast down on the table, leaving the covers on to keep the food warm as he wanders over to the bed and leans on one of the posts, arms folded across his chest. Arthur sleeps on blissfully, mouth slightly ajar and hair matted to his forehead in sleep-sweat. The bed is nearly thrice the size of Merlin's, yet Arthur manages to take up the vast majority of it, laying diagonally with his arms splayed out and blankets a mess all around him. He stirs in his sleep, a small hiccough in his breathing, but can't actually shift for all that the sheets are wrapped too tightly for any leeway, and Merlin has to try really hard not to laugh. Still, there is no containing the fond grin as he moves closer to nudge Arthur's shoulder.

"Hey. Rise and shine, Arthur." The only response Merlin gets is incoherent mumbling and Arthur burrowing further into his pillows, which is unfairly endearing. He bites his lip and tries again, leaning down to jostle his shoulder. "Wake up, you prat. I'll not be held responsible for you sleeping through the King's council meeting."

"G'way," Arthur grumbles and tries to roll away, which only serves to tuck himself into the blankets even more. Merlin stares up to the canopy of the bed, cursing his luck (and grinning unabashedly) before gripping the edge of the blanket and giving a good _tug_ (and if he uses his magic some to help it along, he isn't telling). Arthur rolls out of it and off the other side of the bed with a disgraceful yelp of surprise and displeasure. Merlin laughs, then, the sheet still hanging in his hands when Arthur shouts from the floor. " _Merlin_!"

"Good morning, Sire!" he says cheerily, but it doesn't last long as Arthur gets to his feet and leaps across the bed to grab at him. After a fair bit of wrestling and scuffling around, they both wind up back in the bed, the sheets forgotten to the floor and a shirtless Arthur wrapped around Merlin instead, already dozing back to sleep before Merlin even has a chance to understand what just happened. A flush quickly reaches the tips of his ears when Arthur's breath brushes across his skin where his lips are but a hair's width from his neck. "You - you can't fall back asleep, Arthur."

"Shut up, Merlin," and the Prince's lips meet his neck in an entirely deliberate and not at all accidental way that effectively shuts Merlin up, and he reconsiders that bit about being privileged. Because even if everyone else can see the power that Arthur commands in every breath, it's only Merlin that gets to share that breath with him. And perhaps, maybe, that's just a little bit special.


End file.
